Covid-19 cases spike across India; Delhi brings back mask rule

Masks are back, weeks after their use was made voluntary. The national capital on Wednesday said that wearing masks is mandatory, and violations would attract a fine of Rs 500.

Covid-19 cases seem to be rising across the country. A Business Standard analysis showed that 233 districts (out of the total 727) recorded a rise in positivity rate between April 16 and April 19.

As cases spike in the national capital region (NCR), the Delhi Disaster Manage­ment Authority (DDMA) held a meeting on Wednesday and decided to bring the mask-rule back. It allowed schools to continue physical classes, and there is yet no ban on social gatherings.

Between April 11 and 18, Delhi witnessed a nearly three-fold rise in the number of daily Covid cases, thereby raising concerns. In fact, on Monday, the positivity rate in Delhi breached 7.7 per cent, which came down to 4.4 per cent on Tuesday (632 fresh Covid cases) but went up to 5.7 per cent on Wednesday as fresh cases rose to 1,009.

Delhi still accounts for 20 per cent of the country’s cases, but Covid-19 infections elsewhere have been rising as well.

A Business Standard analysis found that 10 states had more districts recording an increase in positivity rate than those which were reporting a status quo or a decline. In Uttar Pradesh, for instance, positivity had increased in 36 of the 75 districts. In Kerala, 10 districts had reported a rise in positivity compared to four that had recorded a fall. In West Bengal, 14 districts had recorded a rise in positivity.

Further analysis shows that the number of districts with over 5 per cent positivity had increased from 34 to 36 between April 16 and April 19. While Delhi had only one district reporting a positivity of more than 5 per cent on April 16, on April 19, four districts from the national capital had reported a positivity rate of over 5 per cent. Seven districts in the country had reported an increase of 3 percentage points or higher between April 16 and April 19.

Mumbai, too, has seen a recent rise in cases. After one and a half months, daily fresh cases in Mumbai crossed the 80-mark on Tuesday. And on Wednesday, it recorded 98 fresh cases, the highest since the first week of March.

Suresh Kakani, additional municipal commissioner, said that while there was no reason to panic, ward offices have been asked to step up the vigil — keep a close watch on testing, surveillance, contact tracing and quarantining.

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corpo­ration (BMC) is also writing to a central ins­titute seeking clarity on the lineage of the sample that the civic body had concluded to be of the XE variant. On April 6, the BMC had said that one sample, of a woman from South Africa, had been found to be infected with the XE variant. Hours later, the Union health ministry dismissed the claim.

Later, the BMC sent the sequencing data to the National Institute of Biomedical Genomics, and now an analysis shows that the above-mentioned variant is a combination of BA.1 and BA.2. The BMC is thus planning to seek advice on the lineage.

Another man from Gujarat, who had allegedly tested positive for XE, had travelled to Mumbai. None of his contacts have tested positive for XE, which is considered to be more transmissive than the Omicron variant of the Sars-CoV-2 virus.

The Union health secretary wrote a letter to Maharashtra, Mizoram, Delhi, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh on Tuesday highlighting that positivity rates in these states are on the rise. The Union health ministry has urged these states to monitor the spread of infection and take prompt actions wherever required.

The silver lining is that so far hospital­ised patients are not requiring medical oxygen support, physicians point out. “Nor is there demand for ICU beds at the mom­ent. Most patients are managed well at home. Therefore, even if the cases go up, we do not expect the situation to spiral out of control,” said Bishnu Panigrahi, group head, medical strategy and operations, Fortis Healthcare, and member of FICCI’s Covid group.